Gobero

Gobero PDF Author: Elena A. A. Garcea
Publisher: Africa Magna Verlag
ISBN: 393724834X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
The Sahara-Sahel borderland occupies a critical geographical position due to its recurrent latitudinal shifts, continually having a strong impact on humans, animals and plants. Gobero is located at the southern limits of the present Sahara, in Niger. The archaeological record at this site encompasses the re-occupation of the Sahara ca 10,000 years ago until approximately 2000 years ago. During this long period, Gobero witnessed significant fluctuations in climate and water resource availability that resulted in cycles of human occupation, abandonment and re-occupation around a natural basin occupied by a palaeolake, until desertification became an irreversible process and the area turned into a no-return frontier for its occupants. This book presents the archaeological, anthropological and environmental data collected during the 2005 and 2006 field seasons at Gobero. Various factors highlight the extraordinary significance of this site. Thanks to its geographical position, straddling the ancient shifting border(s) of the Sahara and the Sahel, the Gobero's archaeological record reveals critical population movements in this part of Africa and different economic and technological strategies its inhabitants employed to adapt to changing environmental conditions. The presence of both settlement and burial features at Gobero gives a comprehensive view of the cultural, social, economic and funerary traditions of the people who lived and died at this site during almost the entire Holocene. The results from these archaeological investigations provide a term of reference for future research and interpretations of past human occupations in the Sahara, as well as North and West Africa.

Gobero

Gobero PDF Author: Elena A. A. Garcea
Publisher: Africa Magna Verlag
ISBN: 393724834X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Get Book

Book Description
The Sahara-Sahel borderland occupies a critical geographical position due to its recurrent latitudinal shifts, continually having a strong impact on humans, animals and plants. Gobero is located at the southern limits of the present Sahara, in Niger. The archaeological record at this site encompasses the re-occupation of the Sahara ca 10,000 years ago until approximately 2000 years ago. During this long period, Gobero witnessed significant fluctuations in climate and water resource availability that resulted in cycles of human occupation, abandonment and re-occupation around a natural basin occupied by a palaeolake, until desertification became an irreversible process and the area turned into a no-return frontier for its occupants. This book presents the archaeological, anthropological and environmental data collected during the 2005 and 2006 field seasons at Gobero. Various factors highlight the extraordinary significance of this site. Thanks to its geographical position, straddling the ancient shifting border(s) of the Sahara and the Sahel, the Gobero's archaeological record reveals critical population movements in this part of Africa and different economic and technological strategies its inhabitants employed to adapt to changing environmental conditions. The presence of both settlement and burial features at Gobero gives a comprehensive view of the cultural, social, economic and funerary traditions of the people who lived and died at this site during almost the entire Holocene. The results from these archaeological investigations provide a term of reference for future research and interpretations of past human occupations in the Sahara, as well as North and West Africa.

Hunter-Gatherer Adaptation and Resilience

Hunter-Gatherer Adaptation and Resilience PDF Author: Daniel H. Temple
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107187354
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 407

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Book Description
Explores the variety of ways in which hunter-gatherer societies have responded to external stressors while maintaining their core identity.

Black Genesis

Black Genesis PDF Author: Robert Bauval
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1591439736
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Presents proof that an advanced black African civilization inhabited the Sahara long before Pharaonic Egypt • Reveals black Africa to be at the genesis of ancient civilization and the human story • Examines extensive studies into the lost civilization of the “Star People” by renowned anthropologists, archaeologists, genetic scientists, and cultural historians as well as the authors’ archaeoastronomy and hieroglyphics research • Deciphers the history behind the mysterious Nabta Playa ceremonial area and its stone calendar circle and megaliths Relegated to the realm of archaeological heresy, despite a wealth of hard scientific evidence, the theory that an advanced civilization of black Africans settled in the Sahara long before Pharaonic Egypt existed has been dismissed and even condemned by conventional Egyptologists, archaeologists, and the Egyptian government. Uncovering compelling new evidence, Egyptologist Robert Bauval and astrophysicist Thomas Brophy present the anthropological, climatological, archaeological, geological, and genetic research supporting this hugely debated theory of the black African origin of Egyptian civilization. Building upon extensive studies from the past four decades and their own archaeoastronomical and hieroglyphic research, the authors show how the early black culture known as the Cattle People not only domesticated cattle but also had a sophisticated grasp of astronomy; created plentiful rock art at Gilf Kebir and Gebel Uwainat; had trade routes to the Mediterranean coast, central Africa, and the Sinai; held spiritual and occult ceremonies; and constructed a stone calendar circle and megaliths at the ceremonial site of Nabta Playa reminiscent of Stonehenge, yet much older. Revealing these “Star People” as the true founders of ancient Egyptian civilization, this book completely rewrites the history of world civilization, placing black Africa back in its rightful place at the center of mankind’s origins.

A History of Water: Series III, Volume 3

A History of Water: Series III, Volume 3 PDF Author: Terje Tvedt
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 178673138X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 592

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Book Description
Major changes in policy and management , across the entire agricultural production chain, will be needed to ensure the best use of available water resources in meeting growing demands for food and other agricultural products. This new volume in the successful History of Water Series focuses on the African continent to address this key issue. Humanity has its roots in Africa and many of our food systems developed there. All types of agricultural production are present and the sheer size of the continent offers wide ecological variation from extreme desert to dense rainforest. Drawing together leading international contributors from a wide variety of disciplines Water and Food offers new insights into the evolution of food systems, from early hunter gatherers to the global challenges of the modern world.

Saharan Hunter-Gatherers

Saharan Hunter-Gatherers PDF Author: Savino di Lernia
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000615030
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 221

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Book Description
This book explores the archaeology of the Acacus massif and surrounding areas in southwestern Libya over approximately 2500 years of the Early Holocene, utilising fresh theoretical approaches and new explanations of the social and cultural processes of the area. Archaeological and rock art evidence, much of which is unpublished until now, is used to explore the crucial period that encompasses the onset of the “Green Sahara” to the introduction of domestic livestock. It provides a basis for understanding the original cultural and social developments of hunter-gatherers and foragers of the central ranges of the Sahara. The work also bears upon the wider area informing the reconstruction of the environment and cultural dynamics and stands as key reference point for the larger Sahara and North Africa. The book, rich in illustrations, provides a critical synthesis and overview of the developments of central Saharan archaeology within the broader African framework. The book is invaluable to archaeologists, palaeoenvironmental scientists, and rock art researchers working on the Sahara and North Africa and as comparative work for researchers in African archaeology in general.

News from the past: Progress in African archaeobotany

News from the past: Progress in African archaeobotany PDF Author: Ursula Thanheiser
Publisher: Barkhuis
ISBN: 9492444305
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
Most of the contributions in this volume were presented at the seventh International Workshop on African Archaeobotany (IWAA), held in Vienna, 2-5 July 2012. They address past interrelationships between people and plants as evident in the rich archaeobotanical, ethnographic, and linguistic record of Africa. Since its inception two decades ago, IWAA has developed into a tightly knit community of scholars from all continents who share a profound interest in African ways of plant exploitation, trade networks, questions of origin, domestication and subsequent dispersal of African crops, as well as the introduction of crops of Asian and American origin.

The Sahara

The Sahara PDF Author: Eamonn Gearon
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited
ISBN: 1908493178
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
The Sahara is the quintessence of isolation, epitomizing both remoteness and severity of environment unlike any other place on the face of the earth. Replete with myths and fictions, it is a wild land, dotted with oases and camel trains trudging through sand dunes that roll like the waves on a sea, as far as the distant horizon. But this is just part of the picture. The largest desert in the world, the Sahara ranges from the river Nile running through Egypt and Sudan in the east, to the Atlantic coast from Morocco to Mauritania in the west; stretching from the Atlas Mountains and the shores of the Mediterranean in the north, to the fluid Sahelian fringe that delineates the desert in the south. Invaders and traders have come and gone for millennia, but the Sahara is also the place that some people call home. While larger than the United States, this vast area contains only three million people. Africans and Arabs, Berber and Bedu, Tuareg and Tebu. Eamonn Gearon explores the history, culture and terrain of a place whose name is familiar to all, but known to few.

Africa's Lakes

Africa's Lakes PDF Author:
Publisher: UNEP/Earthprint
ISBN: 9789280726947
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
Prepared as part of UNEP's contribution to the 11th World Lakes Conference (held in Nairobi, Kenya in November 2005), this publication examines the environmental changes taking place to Africa's lakes by analysing ground photographs, current and historical satellite images and scientific evidence. Changes highlighted include the rapid shrinking of Lake Songor in Ghana, partly as a result of intensive salt production, and the extraordinary changes in the Zambezi river system as a result of the building of the Cabora Basa dam site. Other impacts, some natural and some human-made and which can only be truly appreciated from space, include the extensive deforestation around Lake Nakuru in Kenya, and the falling water levels of Lake Victoria which is now about a metre lower than it was in the early 1990s. The analysis recognises the importance of Africa's lakes as a source of livelihoods for many local communities, their contribution to the socio-economic development of the continent and the need for the sustainable management of these resources in order to help overcome poverty and meet internationally agreed development goals by 2015.

 PDF Author: Jonathan Cowie
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107018439
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 581

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Book Description
The second edition of this acclaimed text has been fully updated and substantially expanded to include the considerable developments (since publication of the first edition) in our understanding of the science of climate change, its impacts on biological and human systems, and developments in climate policy. Written in an accessible style, it provides a broad review of past, present and likely future climate change from the viewpoints of biology, ecology, human ecology and Earth system science. It will again prove to be invaluable to a wide range of readers, from students in the life sciences who need a brief overview of the basics of climate science, to atmospheric science, geography, geoscience and environmental science students who need to understand the biological and human ecological implications of climate change. It is also a valuable reference text for those involved in environmental monitoring, conservation and policy-making.

Climate Change and the Health of Nations

Climate Change and the Health of Nations PDF Author: Anthony McMichael
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190262974
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
When we think of "climate change," we think of man-made global warming, caused by greenhouse gas emissions. But natural climate change has occurred throughout human history, and populations have had to adapt to the climate's vicissitudes. Anthony J. McMichael, a renowned epidemiologist and a pioneer in the field of how human health relates to climate change, is the ideal person to tell this story. Climate Change and the Health of Nations shows how the natural environment has vast direct and indirect repercussions for human health and welfare. McMichael takes us on a tour of human history through the lens of major transformations in climate. From the very beginning of our species some five million years ago, human biology has evolved in response to cooling temperatures, new food sources, and changing geography. As societies began to form, they too adapted in relation to their environments, most notably with the development of agriculture eleven thousand years ago. Agricultural civilization was a Faustian bargain, however: the prosperity and comfort that an agrarian society provides relies on the assumption that the environment will largely remain stable. Indeed, for agriculture to succeed, environmental conditions must be just right, which McMichael refers to as the "Goldilocks phenomenon." Global warming is disrupting this balance, just as other climate-related upheavals have tested human societies throughout history. As McMichael shows, the break-up of the Roman Empire, the bubonic Plague of Justinian, and the mysterious collapse of Mayan civilization all have roots in climate change. Why devote so much analysis to the past, when the daunting future of climate change is already here? Because the story of mankindâs previous survival in the face of an unpredictable and unstable climate, and of the terrible toll that climate change can take, could not be more important as we face the realities of a warming planet. This sweeping magnum opus is not only a rigorous, innovative, and fascinating exploration of how the climate affects the human condition, but also an urgent call to recognize our species' utter reliance on the earth as it is.